Lancer wrote:
As for Shinkaruk, the kid's thrived in the WHL and I haven't heard anything bad about the Medicine Hat organization

The organization is well run and has been very successful since Willie Dejardins became coach and has continued under his replacement since he left for Dallas. In that time the team has had 10 straight winning seasons (crazy for a junior team due to the high turnover and the tendency for boom and bust cycles) and 11 straight playoff appearnaces, 10 of which went beyond a 1st round and 2 memorial cup appearances, including a final that they lost to that other Vancouver team, the goddamn Giants.

The team seems to pick skill at the expense of size which helps keep them competitive since your 5 ft 8 inch 170lb top liners dont get drafted early (or at all) and you can keep them until they are 20 or even as an overage. Shinkaruk was not a small player by this teams standards. As a comparison, our top players over the years have included Tyler Ennis and Kris Russel. Even our toughest guys were well under 200 lbs (Derek Dorsett)

Unfortunately, I have not seen any games recently so I cant say much about Hunter. Now that he is a prospect, I will surely play much more attention and maybe even get to a game next year.

Don't worry flames fans have gotten around to rationalizing why Poirier is the better pick and how all the scouting services were completely out to lunch (which of course they may be). He is now the superior player and Shinkaruk will be lucky to have a career in a Europe.

tantalum wrote:Don't worry flames fans have gotten around to rationalizing why Poirier is the better pick and how all the scouting services were completely out to lunch (which of course they may be). He is now the superior player and Shinkaruk will be lucky to have a career in a Europe.

Topper wrote:The Flames did similar last year, going off the board, they picked a bunch of college kids. Odd drafting out of cow town the past couple of years.

They left an aging core in tact, unwilling to deal for prospects/picks, and also made poor choices giving away draft picks they had for (returning) aged vets and sideways moves.

A lot of people give Gillis a hard time about draft day choices...I'm glad we don't have Jay Feaster.

Concur, and I sense that Gillis took a look over the mountains this Spring and saw a possible vision of the team's future. He picked a good time/draft to steer clear of a Feaster Fiasco (though in all fairness, he had Dutter to thank for a lot of his mess). I don't think he's totally clear of such a fiasco, but if he can manage a good prospect and player out of a trading of one of the core then he may well pull off an in-fly re-tool. It wouldn't silence all the naysayers, but it would be a pretty good feat.

I think Feaster did fairly well at this year's draft. As for drafting Poirier instead of Shinkaruk - I don't mind the pick at all. Montreal was going to pick him at #25. He has speed to burn, has some grit to his game, and has really made leaps and bounds last season in his overall game. He didn't score as many goals as Shinkaruk, but his numbers were comparable. I guess the Flames liked his size compared to Shinkaruk. Also, Shinkaruk has a more one dimensional game, so, it really isn't that much of a stretch to pick Poirier over Shinkaruk, although I think they will both be good players going forward. I guess we'll see where they are in 5 years, before we know which was the better pick.

Anyway, this isn't the draft that I was interested in. I'm interested in the 2014 and 2015 drafts. The Flames will be sucking big time for the next two years at least, and will have a chance at drafting Ekblad and McDavid.